The UCI scientists and engineers will receive $2 million to study “nonreciprocal magneto-acoustic waves in chiral magnetic systems” under the NSF’s NewLAW program, which was established to discover different ways of manipulating light and sound waves.

Inventions in this area are expected to be beneficial in ultrasound imaging, wireless communications, computing, autonomous vehicles and environmental noise reduction. “I am very excited about winning this competitive award,” Krivorotov said. “Once I learned about the NSF call on novel nonreciprocal waves and devices a year ago, I immediately decided to put together a competitive team and apply, because this subject was very timely and exciting and close to my heart.” He said his work is inspired by earlier theoretical predictions by UCI researchers Igor Dzyaloshinskii and Douglas Mills.

UCI team led by I. Krivorotov is one of nine groups to share a new $18 million research grant.